Hands in Music

a photographic study of hands in music

Rob Roberts - Electric Guitar

"Since damaging the nerves, tendons, muscles and ligaments my arms 6 years ago, I have found playing the guitar to be more of a challenge because playing guitar requires dexterity in my hands as they both need to work independently. My right hand travels over the strings to strum with or without a plectrum, and/or finger pick the strings. Meanwhile, my left hand forms patterns, shapes and fingerings over the strings on the neck of the guitar to create chords, melodies or combinations of the two. When combining the two hands, this is when music occurs."

I went to meet Rob at Birmingham Conservatoire just before its demolition in June 2017. I stupidly assumed that we might find a free practice room, I should have known better. We ended up taking the photos for this entry in one of the emergency stairwells. Poor planning on my part. I admit that this entry does not have the focus on hands of the other posts that I have put up as I have covered the guitar before but I found that this environment which we found ourselves in helped to create some great photos (perhaps some of my favourite).

The stairwell was really dark with no natural light so I had to rely on my speed light flash gun to generate the light that I needed. By pointing my flash at the grey painted wall above me, I was able to get a relatively even covering of light giving the scene a clinical look which is broken up by Robs red top.

Robs top contrasts brilliantly with the monochrome foreground and background, helping to focus the eye on Rob as the subject. In my mind the colours of the picture really lend to the stereotypical "grungy" nature of the electric guitar however the light could be argued as being too bright and soft, not allowing shadows to stand out. With more time, I would have liked to move the flash around casting shadows around the space but I do like the softer light in these photos. It goes against the expectation of seeing high contrast pictures that you might expect when you put "Electric Guitar Photos" in to google.

I did not do much editing to these images but I did increase the vibrancy and decrease the saturation of the colours slightly. This effect helped to level out the colours against the grey walls whilst preventing the colours becoming too over powering. For the musicians out there, it's like compressing an audio signal so that there are no peaks or troughs in the sound then applying an EQ taking out the hi and lo ends out of the compressed signal. My first musical analogy to help explain a photographic term. Does this make sense? Let me know.

A massive thanks to Rob for taking part in the project. Check out his website and see what he is about.

Sam Taylor - his toy collection

"Exploration is the basis of most of my musical activities, and I think my hands are the best tools for this. We grow up using our hands and fingers to grab and feel things, and we learn as much from this as sight or sound. However our hands are different from our eyes or ears in that they are able to move or change real things, so we are able to learn more about how things react or resist. This means a lot to me when I am first exploring a new instrument, and the more I allow my hands to find different ways of playing, the richer the palette of sounds I can use becomes." - Sam Taylor

1

When When Sam offered to play a few of his toy instruments for me to take photos of, he presented me with his melodeon, jaw harp and lap harp. (I'm sure that if I had stayed longer, he would have found a whole range of other bits and pieces.)

A little disclaimer for this one. This #handsinmusic post has less about hands but talks about a more technical aspect of colour.

When I came to process the pictures, I found the relationship of the materials of the instruments and the background of Sam's top and trousers changed the feel of each picture.

Before I started working with photographs, I never really considered how the composition of colours in a picture or film can influence the viewer. Through my photography course, I learned about the colour wheel and these photos show the wheel in action.

2

3

There are several key ideas behind the wheel which shows the relationships of colours to each other. The three easiest to grasp are "Analogous Colours" that are next to each other, "Complimentary Colours" opposite each other and "Triadic Colours" spaced evenly around the wheel (in this case every 4). These colours will usually work well together in both light and ink mediums.

In picture 1. you can see how the melodeon has been made to appeal to the eye, using shades of blue and red, which are complimentary colours on the colour wheel. Sam's shirt also shows a similar colour scheme. In picture 3 you can see how well Sam has picked out his wardrobe, using analogous shades of yellow, orange and red! This was obviously intentional, proving that he is a very snappily dressed dude indeed.

"My hands and fingers are the technical tools that I hone everyday playing the flute. It's almost like I'm sharpening a knife for chopping food or training my legs before a race! This training crumbles the barrier between flute playing and my musicianship eventually allowing me to express what I want to say through music. "

1

The flute is another instrument I am fairly familiar with through my Dad. Most children are embarrassed by "Dad" dancing but I suffered a far greater humiliation! As a peripatetic music teacher my Father always had several flutes in the back of the car which he was never afraid to whack out at gigs or parties...

I have always been terrified to pick up woodwind instruments as they look fragile and breakable, I say as much in my project on the clarinet. Although flutes can come in a variety of garish colours, the silver flute looks like the most breakable as all the components are the same colour and become completely indecipherable. Photo 1 gives some idea behind my thinking. The instrument could be likened to the pipework of a steam locomotive. If you were to take it apart you would be hard pushed to put it back together correctly.

It is interesting that the flute at its simplest is just a hollow tube covered in a very complicated system of rods and buttons. Photo 2 shows the flute as just a tube without the gubbins in the first picture.

​​​ ​I would describe Arjun's hands in these photos as being very "characterful". There is a wide variation in the amount of detail that can be seen between the two hands.

2

In picture 2, the hand on the left is in sharp focus, and shows all the lines in his skin. From the small delicate lines of the palm to the creases in the skin of the fingers. The high contrast nature of the photograph has really helped to bring out these details. When you capture a moment like this where see all of these tiny details in the skin, it can be quite fascinating to examine these features. I personally

Classical Guitar - ​​Shannon-Latoyah Simon

"My hands need to be extremely delicate, the smallest adjustments in the right hand can make a vast difference in timbre, colour and dynamics. My hands also represent strength, due to the nature of the guitar it can be a physical challenge moving up and down the fretboard with the left hand." - Shannon-Latoyah Simon​

I've never been particularly good at instruments that require finesse and dexterity in my fingers. I can smash out chords on a ukulele but picking melodies and arpeggios on guitar is near impossible to me. I am used to large movements with my arms and legs while drumming. A far less subtle approach to music making in my opinion.

Unlike the clarinet, the acoustic guitar looks much more robust. Its solid construction combines smooth curved lines of the resonator (the body) with the straight lines of the strings and neck. I think of blowed glass attached to the pipe. Closely looking at the photo below, you can see how thin the wood of the resonator is around the hole as well as the natural grain in the wood.

​Shannon's hands have two very different purposes and actions while performing, Her right hand is used to strum and pick the strings where her left hand selects notes that she needs on the neck. The photo above shows how the left hand can be used to reach multiple notes in an arpeggio. The shape the hand forms is very deliberate yet can look very awkward to those unfamiliar with chord shapes. Admittedly, playing towards the body of the guitar gets harder as the frets get closer together, in this position it is fairly common to see fingers jammed stretched or straining to get certain notes.

A trait shared by some classical guitarists is that the nails on their right hand are longer than their left, (In some cases this might just be poor hygiene...) but typically the nails on the right hand are left slightly longer allowing the player to pick at the strings with their nails as well as the soft fleshy part of the finger creating a more harsh sound. (Think the sound "Ting" rather than "Tung")

I was very happy with these photos. I used my speedlite 420ex flash unit to brighten the very dark room we took the photos in. I used my 100-300mm lens in macro mode which produced some very nice blurring around the subject at a low F.stop. I was pleasantly surprised when I came to develop the photos and found how nicely these came out. Considering how that the sensor was set ISO 3200, there was loads of detail in Shannon's hands and the noise from the sensor was fairly minimal. Lovely!

​Clarinet - Chloe Knibbs

"I love when a piece of music has "got into" my hands, when they know where it's going. Then I can just let the notes take care of themselves and focus on the music." - Chloe Knibbs

The clarinet is an odd instrument to me. Although I don't play it, I am very familiar with them through my Dad who is a woodwind teacher and my experiences playing in the National Youth Wind Orchestra. They look like ivy ridden branches of a chromed tree with all the silver keys, connecting rods and holes. I was surprised how different the form of her hand changed looking at Chloe's hands in these two pictures,

​​The picture above shows smooth flowing lines her fingers create, adding to the tendril quality of the clarinet. The soft focus allows the eye to wonder around the frame terminating at her little finger, which in this photo is lifted away from the instrument. The picture on the right feels much more solid and angular. Chloe's hand has become more claw-like, and her hand feels much more defined through this. The joints in her fingers are much more pronounced as she covers all the holes on the instrument.

Looking at this scene from the side greatly impacts the view you get from the hands. The angle of the instrument in the two photos is very similar however shooting these photos from the front and side give very different results. I should have tired to get a picture of the octave keys from behind to see how that would have effected the shot.